31.8.04

Can't remember the name of this minor goth band I saw at a small club in the 80s, whose record I haven't listened to for ages... yet keep remembering and singing to my self the words "In my dreams... I keep wasting time/ wasting time, time, wasting time/wasting time, time -wasting time" it was a north-european techno/dark band, something like The Iceberg Project. Should check if I still have the e.p. or lost it in my 2-year-storage of boxes where I lost soooo many things I treasured.

Been playing with my blog, as you may notice. Lost it and re-organized it many times.

Been online to a girl i used to work with, who left Takezo at the time I'd announced I was leaving too.

On Sunday my mother flung a party for Hugo. He shall be 9 on the 6th, but for some reason the party was 8 days earlier. Sigh.

I always prepare another party for him once he's back in Barcelona for school, with his real friends. But my parents have only made 2 parties for him, despite the huge house, the garden and the swimmingpool they have, as opposed to my tiny basement flat.

The thing is, I have to pay for all the expenses for the Barcelona party -food, party loots, prizes, etc- yet for the ones at my parents', I prepare the games and pay for the party loots and prizes, while my mom gets the food ready. So I am paying for treats for double the kids now. Wow.

And getting party ideas for two sets of kids, in a short time...

Anyway... I went for the following games, in case anyone was interested:

Treasure hunting: there were a series of clues hidden all over the garden and house, allways in rhyme, never too complicated as I know my son's friends and their attention span, but not too obvious either. Every clue had also a little parcel with either sweets or tiny toys, as a minor prize. At first the boys didn't want to play, but after encouraging them 'till they found the first clue hidden according to my initial directions... they went absolutely mad about it!!!!

Crocodile hunting: I'd got a blister with 20 tiny crocodile stickers, and stuck them half-hidden in an area that was easy to control, but with quite a bit of rocks and plants & trees... a bit of a jungle for the smaller kids!!! I had originally intended this game for the smaller kids, and it worked out perfect that the elder boys wanted to swim a bit while the little girls and smaller boys were 'hunting crocodiles'.

The Mummy: Originally it was going to be in two or three teams... but in the end it was 3 children and me playing, so Hugo & Angelo were against Marina and me... we had to wrap one of the members of the team in toilet roll as fast as possible, and trying to cover them up completely as an egyptian mummy!!! As Hugo & I had experience in this, we wrapped the other two. They couldn't stop giggling when they started to see themselves transformed...

The rest of the games we didn't do in the end, the sun came out and into the pool we went. Am glad I still have the hack with small children, after so many years in an office and adult world ;)

One of the things I learned, and can clearly see now, is I have 'A beautiful pentacle in your left hand, that is protecting you and should help you if you try to explore other fields and find a use for all the intelligence and creativity you seem to be wasting'.

Pentagrams and Pentacles seem to be, quite truly, a sign of protection, of 'lucky star' -which I know I have, believe it or not!- and of white magic. It is also associated to the feminine, to the godesses, to nature... and commonly to Satan worship, as a later use.
I am once again seeing a line in my recent readings and interests:

I was fascinated to learn about Justo Gallego. He is building a cathedral in the outskirts of Madrid, out of debris and donations.

Have just finished reading 'Touch' by Elmore Leonard, where this guy Juvenal has stigmata and the power to heal people and uses it at an AA detox centre.

Am finally reading 'The Da Vinci Code' by Dan Brown, where the Pentacle and the Divine Goddess is explored.

These books have probably been chosen because of my mood, but I had started reading the Da Vinci Code before having my palms read, as everyone insists on me reading it. Not a specially good book, but at least I can join the conversations now!
Introspection is the name of the game.

24.8.04

As you can guess by my posts lately, am going through a moment of reflexion.

A time of questioning my recent years. A time of looking at my future in the eyes and trying to decide if what I see is what I want.

A time of chills, more than fear. A time of goosepimples, of sitting on the floor in a corner, watching cars and people pass by.

Also a time of living my emotions openly, passionately. Haven't finally talked about Valencia, but Eva became conscious there and then of how I am changing. She hasn't known me long enough to recognize what this means. Patricia would immediately, should she read this some day. Marta and Isabel are aware of what's going on, but not to what extent, and Mary-Anne may recognize my days of Nietzsche and Bataille* and the influence of Dionysos in my everyday life...

Am transported somehow to 1991. The year I found out about my megaprolactinoma. The year I used to walk the streets for hours looking up into the sky, and learnt to find my way through the city according to the roofs and tops of buildings, instead of by the shops on street level...

It's weird. Really.

1991.

Suddenly started meeting people I had close contact with in that year -or 1990-92- ...and hadn't seen since. This was after starting to realize what I was feeling. I have this vision of all the masks I've had to wear one on top of another, to gradually become the secretary I am now, melting and bringing the fresh air back to me... but then what???!!!

Had my palms read for the first time in my life, someone trustworthy, and the things she said also carried me there. She talked about how much there is hidden in me, of how specially emotive and passionate I am, and even so how little I hide it... but how I hide my personality and my gifts, how I am not using my intelligence or my creativity enough, and what it is doing to the inner me.

I might talk more about this in a future post. The subject is now this. My re-enacting 1991.

Or shall it be the beguinning of a new cycle?

What does 1991 mean to me? Besides a beautiful number, it's the year I finished University and believed that I was officially a philosopher. I mean, when you finish Psychology you're supposed to be a psychologist, aren't you?

T'was the year I started serious clubbing, too, moving among The Fashionable Ones and having crowds being parted to let me in to certain clubs or discos.

T'was the year I fell in love with Bernard. My son's father. The person who has changed my life in so many ways, for good and for bad...

T'was when I started getting involved with designers, djs, etc and had my performance group, was gogo dancing, was posing for my photographer friends and other artists...

T'was before I had to wash the stars out of my eyes and conform with society.

The only Apolo that I was close to was the disco I went to every weekend... while Dyonisos was the clue to many of my moods and outburst -of laughter, of love, of fear, of dance, of work...

20.8.04

It was very interesting in some parts. Good texts too involving Derrida, Bataille, Deleuze... yet other bits perhaps less captivating for me. Eva, who was with me, was asking for a bit of guidance on Romanticism and Wagner... to understand parts of the exhibition, so we had a chance to discuss subjects I usually don't talk about with her.

18.8.04

to actually tell you all our stuff from Valencia and from Eva's wedding. Shall go into it later on, am catching up with all my emails and job applications etc...

But uploaded the digital pics into Flickr and it was too hard not to play around a bit with it, posting some of the pics before going into details. Because details there shall be, Velena, don't worry. Want to transmit it as I lived it, can't do it now.

Been funny, been nerve-wrecking, been awkward, been hot, been many things in a short, short time.

Want to talk about the guys there, at the wedding... the cuban community we met, the good, the bad and the ugly sort of thing... want to talk about some really funny and intelligent guys we met, and some really dumb and gross ones too... want to talk about our quest to find a bar that actually served fresh orange juice in Valencia, believe it or not we only just managed this on our last day there!... want to talk about how I felt about Eva, protective and close, at a moment she was out of her mind with tension... want to talk about the good things and the bad ones we came across, but specially want to talk about my aesthetic experience at IVAM, can't go into details now but I am set to find out more about a whole load of new artists I hadn't noticed before...

...and really must find out about the one who made me sweat, cry and almost faint by feeling absorbed by this sculpture. Something like what happened to Stendhal when he first saw Florence.
Eva didn't know this part of me, and at first thought I was joking. I really almost fainted after having one of my pure aesthetic experiences, a bit like what happened years ago when I walked into the Gilbert and George room at the Tate in London, and refused to leave though my friend was insisting... I think I actually had mentioned some time before during this summer I have started feeling my raptures and emotional floods of my Nietzschean days. This was a typical reaction to a strong, hypnotic vision. Am back in 1990, 1991, when I would get lost in my own hood, after watching a certain film (Dead Ringers, for instance) or would go crashing into people because I had to walk looking up into the sky, couldn't bear the faces around me......

For some reason, i went back to read the posts I made last winter, when losing Joan.

Happy couple... and me between two cuban romeos (?!)
It got quite clear that I was supposed to be 'available', and as Eva got closer and closer to her husband, I got his friends' attention a bit too much. Of course they are not bad guys, but this sort of square, imposed feeling has never appealed to me. I have never been one to go out with another girl, and hitch up two guys who are out together too ...a very typical Spanish way of chatting people up.

I think someone told me once that there was some way to store sms you don't want to erase -I mean, store without clogging up your mobile and giving you space to receive more sms. I guess it shall be, if anything, some Nokia thingy.

There are many reasons why you cling to sms. Some are useful information you carry on you. In this case, I usually copy them into the 'outbox' sms list. But in my mobile, a cheap crappy TSM5, this is not always useful. You can only do that when you write it out again and store instead of sending.

When in love, there are hundreds of sms you hate erasing, but there are dozens you would actually keep for ever, XXI century love letters, with all the spontanious urge of love, lust, desire, fun... I went through a love realationship very much based on SMS, where we used to exchange all sort of hot, funny or romantic SMS from home, work, on the Public Transport... When this relationship ended, I eventually erased them all, as I had very little space for incoming messages, but I still would have rather kept them somewhere.

It is not the same to copy them down on a piece of paper, to keep.

You have the signature of date, hour... you remember the situation involved, and though you don't keep them all, you remember what you replied, what happended then...

Right now, I have my list of unerasable SMS down to 8, but my phone has trouble receiving them once I'm up to 14 or 15... I remember in my previous Motorola it was 25, and some people I know have literally a hundred or so!!!!!!!

Just got rid of another SMS I couldn't erase, it was someone's bank account for me to pay her back the 100 euro she lent me... So am left with those SMS that are not love messages, but are those things people write in a hurry without thinking and are a perfect snapshot of their personality. I had to get rid of some of those too -i mean, with my ex I still get into SMS marathons where we send each other 26 or 30 messages each in one day, then keep quiet for a month!!!!!!!

Here are some of the SMS I have kept right now. They are all in their original language, sorry if you can't read Spanish... and one is in Catalan. The sintaxis is the original one too -part of their character. Those of you who know me personally, and who know my friends a bit, can guess who they are from. But most are in English or Spanglish!!! One hint: One is from Malena, the Italo-French designer, one is from Mami, the Japanese Busker, one is from Xavi, the night of the cacerolada, one is from Bodyfriend and one is from my ex, Joan.

Estem fent la revolucio vine

o que bien ,losangeles d charlie se van d marcha!

Hey im here right in front of el corta inglish sitting on branch look for me

AURIA!LAST MESSAGE U SENT WAS JUST I OFF D PHONE2SLEEP!WHEN IS UR HOLIDAY?I'M ON HOLIDAY4EVER AS I SAID FUCK OFF2ASSHOLE-GABACHO AYER!SO I GOT BACK TIME4FRIENDS

Just can't get rid of them! Every now and then I read them -these and a few more I kept- and smile feeling my friends next to me. Each one of these SMS is a true vision of each one of their authors. Shame I had to get rid of some of Xavi's w3ird sp4nis# minimal sms -unreadible, specially when he's drunk while writing them!!!!
Well. Enough for today.

3.8.04

...and came out of Happy Books with this book called 'El Latigo de Cien Colas', an illustrated book by Krahn, and with -hardly any- texts by Brossa. Only 1 euro!!!!! It's mesmerizing, I got onto a bus I'd never seen before, and just sat and went through the pictures... until I felt it was my 'hood, and there I was, two streets away from my flat!

Also bought an Antonio Gala book, as I've only read one before and quite liked it. 3 euro. Worth giving it a try. I'd never thought of reading his novels, until Nate gave me one, some years ago...

Finally, I must admit I gave in and got the book everyone's been talking about for the last few months. The Da Vinci Code. Was waiting till the craze wore off, but saw it at a low price and gave in. Am curious. Sorry, Mary-Anne. But I promise, on the other hand, to go watch Michael Moore's film on the free open-air cinema in a fortnight, the Bowling For Columbine I kept refusing to pay for :P

Have to finish some of the books am on now first... last weekend I chose two in french for my Dear Sis, as she's asking me to lend her novels or books 'that are interesting, and in french, to make me revise my French' So I selected for her La Peste, by Camus, and a Sartre, I think it was L'existentialisme est un humanisme, or La Nausée, can't remeber. Because I had La Peste in my hands for too long, and before catching the train to Lloret I was allready reading it again, as I hadn't read it since I was about 20. Once at my parents', I decided to leave it there, lend her it, and read it later on -probably as soon as its returned to me next week?

Made me think of all the books I'm planning to re-read, and wonder why I'm buying new ones.

So I silently glide my fingers over the drawings on Krahn's book, and let myself go once more...